The dabble with clay that made our day

There was zero chance of such shenanigans when I signed up for a ‘sip and clay’ session, with my company consisting of my mum, sister and a friend.

But, of course, that didn’t stop the jokes and innuendo about that famed movie scene as we got our hands covered in clay and slip while we moulded and sipped our way through an afternoon at Kialla’s Honeypot Pottery studio.

It was a while ago now – I have a few more wrinkles and a few less marbles – but Denielle, our talented pottery tutor, is still running these sessions out of her charming workshop and I think that’s such a treat for the creatives in the GV who seek wholesome hands-on activities to fill gaps in their diaries.

I’m forever seeing enticing workshops pop up in my Facebook feed: perfume-making, ring-making, mosaic building, Bonsai for beginners, candles and cocktails.

I’ve even seen a knife-making workshop recently.

Intrigued by that one, but also curious as to how one goes leaving the city-based studio with their new custom blade in hand for a walk back to the carpark.

These things are almost always in Melbourne.

When they are in Shepparton, they’re often run by travelling facilitators.

I get it.

The population is not big enough to pack out session after session for sustained periods of time to make a format like that viable long-term.

I guess if there’s no resident artisan, no attached shop, no saleable art, no bar, no restaurant, nothing else, it would be hard for it to survive on classes alone in a regional location.

A friend and I went to one of the very last sessions Shepparton’s former Pinot and Picasso held before it closed and we were the only two there in a room that could seat 20 or more amateur artists at easels.

We paid about 50 bucks each for the two-hour session, so the business received just $100 that night to cover wages for more than two hours (there’s set-up and pack-down before and after the session), rent, electricity, insurance and art supplies.

So, sadly, it’s unsurprising when those kinds of places don’t survive.

Denielle doesn’t just run sip and clay sessions though.

She also spends plenty of time pottering around in her pottery, creating goods to fill gift shop shelves and goods to sell from her home-based workshop.

The Sip & Clay sessions are a bonus for us, and participating groups can choose a time that suits both them and their host during the daytime or early evening, rather than being limited to set session times.

We chose a Saturday afternoon to don our aprons and roll up our sleeves.

Denielle guided us through hand-building techniques to make a small platter each and a condiment bowl.

We could choose our plate shapes and the patterns and stamps to decorate them with, and when we were done, we could choose a glaze colour which Denielle applied for us during the firing and finishing processes of our items in the days that followed our session.

At the end of our workshop, we each got to have a turn on her pottery wheel.

Let’s just say, Demi Moore – who, fun fact, took pottery classes with Ghost’s director, Jerry Zucker, for authenticity of the scene – made it look easy.

Our creations looked more like the mess made of Molly’s pots after a bare-chested Sam crashed her party that night to the tune of The Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody.

Unlike Demi Moore – who, another fun fact, still has the pots she made during filming (despite herself likening them to being kindergarten skill level) – we didn’t get to keep our wheel-thrown creations, but it was a lot of fun to have a crack at something without having to invest big bucks in equipment just to try something we may have discovered we didn’t even like doing.

We can all probably romanticise any pastime if it’s presented to us in a sexy scene like Molly and Sam’s, but the scene in Denielle’s back ‘shed’ during our visit just looked a little unco, wacky and wonky, and came with a soundtrack of snort laughter.

Which is also pretty playful in a much different kind of way.

Who doesn’t love fun in all of its various varieties?